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State Stix



No takeover rumors at ICI — yet


With total assets of $16.2 million and working capital of $2.4 million, Illinois Correctional Industries showed a 4.5 return on revenue in fiscal year 1988; that's down from 7.3 percent the year before. Invoiced sales increased 21 percent to a record level of $18.2 million in fiscal 1988, up from $15.1 million the previous year.

Established firm
Illinois Correctional Industries (ICI) has been a self-supporting division of the Illinois Department of Corrections since 1904.


Prison work force
ICI had 1,081 job positions available for inmates during fiscal year 1988. Those jobs are at 16 prisons, where 998 inmates were employed on average each month.


Diversified products
Belts, book binding, surgical caps, beef, church pews, duck laundry bags, brooms, cigarettes, butcher block tops, soap, judge's chairs and telephone stands. Those are just some of the products produced by ICI.


Market shares; longtime customers
Operating revenues are generated by sales of products and services from 53 plants and farms across the state. ICI's marketplace is legislatively defined and includes: state agencies (biggest customer is the Department of Corrections — $5,352,693 in fiscal 1988 sales); local units of government (total fiscal 1988 sales of $356,843); colleges and universities ($120,435 in sales), and not-for-profit organizations ($397,907 in sales).


Breaking into service sector with telemarketing services
Not a business to stand still, ICI shows signs of breaking from manufacturing, agricultural and textiles into the service sector. The Jacksonville Correctional Center started a new Telemarketing Program in November 1987 and in June 88 began phone solicitation services for not-for-profit organizations (must be registered with the secretary of state). For more information, call the toll-free number: 800-634-0213.


107,722 pairs of eyeglasses
The Dixon Correctional Center's Optical Plant produced 107,722 pairs of eyeglasses in fiscal 1988. It was set up in fiscal 1986 and makes eyeglasses for inmates at Illinois prisons and for other state agencies, including the Department of Public Aid. Total sales by the Optical Plant in fiscal 1988 were $2.3 million with just under $100,000 to the Illinois Department of Corrections, the parent company of ICI.


70,000 boxes
One of the newest ICI plants is the box manufacturing unit established in October 1987 at Danville Correctional Center. ICI estimates that with six inmates in its work force, the new plant will produce 70,000 boxes the first year. There's a big market for boxes in all state agencies.


Shawnee sheetmetal
With an average inmate workforce of 20, the Shawnee Correctional Center's Metal Furniture Plant produced 173 spring beds, 190 bed extensions, 500 aluminum plates, 752 warning type tripods, 500 aluminum strips, 1,100 leveler bars, 110 wing support brackets, 70 bedside tables with wood tops, 2,014 angle irons, 236 security beds, 4 security seats, 4 security desks, 20 no-sag springs and 6 desk drawers.


Vandalia farms show profit
With total production costs of $401,311 in fiscal 1988, the farms at Vandalia Correctional Center had an income of $415,399. The Vandalia farms (others are at Menard and Galesburg) has a dairy (1,715,509 pounds of raw milk produced) and a crop operation (523.21 tons of alfalfa, 107.67 tons of grass hay, 29.4 tons of straw, 25,192 bushels of corn, 9,663 bushels of soybeans, 1,599 bushels of wheat).

The Vandalia farms also process meat (853,416 pounds of beef, 24,442 pounds of beef carcasses and 217,566 pounds of pork) and milk and juice (8,562,200 half pints of milk, 12,128 milk gallons, 1,681 cases of chocolate milk, 1,700,755 four-ounce juice cartons and 2,983,300 8-ounce juice containers).


Work rules not Japanese
The past two years show full shifts working at many of the plants but some show average monthly employment below 60 percent, due generally to (a) lack of raw materials, (b) lack of orders or (c) employee problems — noninterest in employment or lock down.

Source for all of the above: Illinois Correctional Industries, 1987 and 1988 Annual Reports, Illinois Department of Corrections, to the General Assembly.


General funds
The general funds balance at the end of November was $60,904 million, and the average daily available balance was $134.279 million .That's better than the November 1987 balance of $28.812 million and $70.832 million, respectively. When was our last hefty November? Way back in 1985 when the end-of-month clocked in at $207.691 million and the average daily was $325.735 million.

Source: Office of the Comptroller.


More people working and more people unemployed
In November the nation's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.4 percent, up from the 14-year low of 5.3 percent in October. In Illinois it rose to 7.1 percent from 6.6 percent in October.

There were 5.932 million people in the state's work force in November. Of these, 5.508 million were working, beating the previous record set in August 1988. But 424,000 people were job hunting, up 42,000 from October, which was up 35,000 from September.

All sectors except mining saw job gains between November 1987 and November 1998. Services and retail trade led, followed by construction and manufacturing. As of November manufacturing had shown over-the-year for the 20th consecutive month.

Final September unemployment rates in the state's major cities were:

    Aurora-Elgin, 4.1 percent.
    Bloomington-Normal, 4.0 percent.
    Champaign-Urbana-Rantoul, 3.0 percent
    Chicago, 5.1 percent.
    Quad Cities (Illinois sector), 5.8 percent
    Decatur, 6.8 percent.
    Joliet, 5.5 percent.
    Kankakee, 7.6 percent.
    Lake County, 3.3 percent.
    Peoria, 5.4 percent.
    Rockford, 5.5 percent.
    Springfield, 4.2 percent.
    St. Louis (Illinois sector), 7.4 percent.
    Source: Department of Employment     Caroline Gherardini

6 | January 1989 | Illinois Issues


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